Scalable Human Blog

⚡️ TL;DR: Vibe coding can spark creativity and speed, but without guardrails, it can lead to costly mistakes—especially in cloud environments. Always review AI-generated code and guide your tools with clear constraints to avoid scaling surprises.

🎯 I Tried Vibe Coding… But Then I Stopped Immediately

Vibe coding sounds dreamy: you’re in the zone, music playing, AI tools humming along, and code practically writes itself. But what happens when that good vibe turns into a costly oversight?

While building a Node.js app, I leaned into the vibe—using Cursor and Claude-4-Sonnet to implement autosave functionality. It felt smooth and effortless. That is, until I realized the AI had set up a database write every 15 seconds. In a cloud environment like AWS or Azure, that kind of behavior can seriously rack up costs.

This experience taught me a valuable lesson: vibe coding is great for flow, but dangerous without structure.

🤔 The Double-Edged Sword of Vibe Coding

What Is Vibe Coding, Anyway?

Vibe coding, as described by developers and communities like DEV and Stack Overflow, is a relaxed, often music-fueled state of programming where you’re in deep flow. It’s not an official methodology, but more a mindset. Some developers say it helps them be more productive and creative, especially when working on early-stage ideas or MVPs.

But here’s the catch: vibe coding often skips over implementation details. When you let AI take the wheel without constraints, it might drive you straight into a wall—like my autosave feature that quietly created a financial liability.

My Costly Wake-Up Call

The form filler I was building needed to autosave progress in case users walked away mid-process. I asked Claude-4-Sonnet via Cursor to implement it. The solution worked… technically. But when I reviewed the code, I saw it was writing to the database every 15 seconds, regardless of whether changes had been made.

That’s fine for a local dev setup. But in production—especially in a cloud cluster—those extra DB transactions can snowball into real dollars. Imagine hundreds of users idling on a form page, each generating constant writes. That’s not just inefficient—it’s unsustainable.

The Real Issue: Lack of Guardrails

This wasn’t a bug. It was a lack of context. The AI had no idea I cared about cloud cost optimization. It saw a problem (autosave) and solved it the simplest way possible. That’s on me.

If I had defined constraints—like minimizing DB writes or emphasizing cloud efficiency—Claude might have offered a better solution. Tools like .cursorrules exist for this very reason: to guide AI agents with project-specific rules and priorities.

The Fix: Smarter Saving

In the end, I replaced the naive autosave with a hybrid approach: cache changes locally and only write to the database when the user clicks “save”—with a rate limit for safety. It’s simple, scalable, and cloud-conscious.

✅ Key Takeaways

• Vibe coding can boost creativity, but it needs structure to avoid risky outcomes.
• AI-generated code isn’t always optimized for scale or cost—always review it.
• Define clear constraints using tools like .cursorrules to guide AI agents.
• Cloud environments amplify small inefficiencies—test with scale in mind.
• Use vibe coding for prototyping, but rely on software engineering fundamentals for production.

🎉 Conclusion

Vibe coding isn’t bad—it’s just incomplete. It’s a great way to jumpstart ideas and get into flow, especially with AI tools at your side. But when you’re building for the cloud, scaling for users, and preparing for real-world costs, you need more than vibes. You need discipline, foresight, and a healthy dose of skepticism.

So go ahead, vibe out. But don’t forget to check the code, set the rules, and think like an engineer. That’s how you turn a fun prototype into a production-ready app but still these tools are not one shotting apps and we need experienced software engineers/architects.

Have you tried vibe coding? What’s your take on balancing creativity and control? Let’s chat in the comments.

📚 Further Reading & Related Topics
If you’re exploring personal experiences and lessons in coding, these related articles will provide deeper insights:
• Why AI May Never Fully Replace Programmers: The Human Element in Software Development – This article complements the personal perspective of “Vibe Coding” by discussing the irreplaceable human intuition and creativity in software development, especially relevant when exploring unconventional coding approaches.
• Harnessing the Power of AI: Unleashing My Full Potential with ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot – A firsthand account of how AI tools transformed the author’s workflow, echoing the experiential theme of coding with a new mindset or methodology.
• The Psychological Benefits of Being a Software Engineer: Personal Observations – This introspective piece aligns with the reflective nature of “Vibe Coding” and explores how coding can be fulfilling beyond technical output.